Amid increase in demand for graphic processing units (GPUs) by companies to meet high compute requirements, AMD India country head and senior vice president – silicon design engineering, Jaya Jagadish said monopoly in the segment can hurt the ecosystem. The hint is towards the long wait due to the rising demand for Nvidia’s GPUs, even though firms like AMD offer competitive AI chipsets. Jagadish spoke to Jatin Grover on developing the supply chain ecosystem in India, AMD’s largest design center in Bengaluru, talent in semiconductor and AI, and approach towards the semiconductor manufacturing and design ecosystem in the country. Excerpts:
Q.India has a Rs 10,000 crore IndiaAI mission. How is AMD looking to participate in that?
A.We are not directly working with the government, but looking at strengthening the ecosystem. AMD has definitely prioritised AI. We have our best-in-class GPUs, CPUs (central processing units) and adaptive computing solutions for AI inferencing and training. We also have the open and proven software platform ROCm where it provides a set of tools, libraries, drivers for the users to deploy their solutions. The aim is to develop a deep collaborative ecosystem through which AMD’s AI solutions can be adapted.
Q. The government is expected to procure GPUs from companies like Nvidia. Anything specific for which AMD is pitching?
A.Nothing specific that can be shared as of now. There are a lot of things that we are looking into and there are a few proposals that we have sent. These are still in the initial phases and under consideration.
Q. What is your sense of the market when you look at people racing towards the competitors’ GPUs?
A. We are in the race and in the center of the whole AI revolution. We are coming with competitive products and avoiding the monopoly, which can hurt the entire ecosystem. That is where AMD’s high performance compute solutions come in. Our recently launched MI300X accelerators, are the best in class accelerators for training and inferencing. So, we are coming up with a parallel product that is as competitive for the users and also we are trying to make the ecosystem healthy by providing an open software platform to work on. These are some of AMD’s biggest contributions to the ecosystem.
Q.Despite the alternatives being available, companies are waiting for months to procure GPUs from Nvidia. How do you see the industry structure?
A. My perspective is that it’s almost like the initial hype. AI is the new kid on the block. Everybody now wants to get their hands on the best product. It’s that initial rush and enthusiasm. People are not thinking much about who has the right performance, what do I need, what is my requirement, and how does this product cater to that requirement? When you go to a company for a product and they say it’s going to take six months to even look at the ask, at that point people will be forced to look at the alternatives. Monopoly in many ways can hurt the ecosystem. But also they (competition) won’t be able to cater to the huge demand out there. So there will be many more players that have to emerge in the forefront and all of those products should come out and that will keep our ecosystem healthy. The initial hype will settle down and people will start looking at things for what they stand and offer.
Q. So, is it about lack of awareness regarding alternatives?
A. It could be in some cases. But once they see, there are alternatives, which will cost them less and also be a better product, they will explore them. So, all of these will sink in, it is sinking in, but it will take a little time. The initial rush will always look too large, too big.
Q. What’s the update on the $400 million investment in India for the design center?
A. The amount was to be spent over a period of five years. More than 50% of it was going to go into building the R&D center. Phase one was inaugurated in November last year. Phase two is well on track and will be completed by the end of this year. We also said that we will invest in hiring over 3,000 engineers over the next five years and we have hired about one-third of that. A lot of the roles we have hired for are AI-related across portfolios in CPU design team, data fabric, graphics, intellectual property, system on chips, and hardware designs.
Q. Does AMD have any plans to manufacture chips in India maybe through partnerships?
A. Nothing as of now that I am aware of. You never know, things can change in future, but right now there’s no such plan.
Q. How you see the chip design ecosystem in India. What do you think needs to be done to utilise it fully?
A.There’s the supply chain dependency as companies have to rely on some company outside India to get their chips manufactured. Once there is a manufacturing ecosystem in the country, we will definitely see more startups or indigenous designs making their way.
Q. Any changes you think should be done in the country’s approach towards semiconductors?
A. Many steps taken by the government are heading in the right direction. We need to focus both on manufacturing and design. We need many more companies to come and invest and the government has to make sure the infrastructure and other related aspects are taken care of. Once manufacturing starts, we can’t keep our fabs empty. We need strong designs that need to come in large numbers to keep our fabs full.
Q. Do you think there is a skill-set gap with regard to talent in AI?
A. There is an emerging technology that’s getting mainstream and we won’t have ready-made talent available. It will be like converting that raw talent into relevant talent. AI as a concept can be applied to various aspects of design. Honestly, I don’t believe there is a huge gap, it’s more of a gap in the industry where everyone’s trying to figure out how they can use AI and get productivity.